Price rise, creamy layer: House set for a noisy start

The MPs would march from Mavlankar Hall to the Parliament House.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta told The Indian Express that a discussion on price rise initiated by him briefly had been pending since the first half of the session. He recalled that he had given a notice for a calling attention motion, which was converted into a short duration discussion by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. He hoped the same motion would be taken up.

Meanwhile, NDA’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani blasted the Centre for its failure to check the rising prices.

“The prices of essential commodities are rising continuously. The Government had promised to check inflation during the Budget session, but it failed to do so at the ground level. The Opposition will corner the Government on the issue in Parliament,” Advani told reporters in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, where he took part in an Ambedkar Jayanti function.

Party president Rajnath Singh, too, joined his senior colleague in attacking the Congress for its failure to curb the spiralling prices. “Let them come out with a white paper. Let there be a discussion in Parliament. Is it beyond the top three names manning the country’s economy to bring the situation under control?” he asked.

Favouring a special discussion on price rise, BJP parliamentary party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said his party would try to move an adjournment motion on the issue. Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh also said his party would seek an adjournment motion on price rise.

However, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court excluding creamy layer from the ambit of OBC is also set to dominate discussions in Parliament with many of the UPA constituents like the DMK, the RJD and the LJP putting pressure on the Congress leadership to go for a review petition. The Congress is, however, reluctant. Its Working Committee had about two decades back passed a resolution excluding creamy layer from the ambit of reservation.

The Congress is, nonetheless, sympathetic to the DMK’s demand — put forward by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last Saturday — to redefine creamy layer and further increase the income limit of Rs 2.5 lakh as prescribed under the existing criteria.

The session will conclude on May 9.